---
title: 'How foolish to bid me to put sand on the floors,' he thought, 'when… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'How foolish to bid me to put sand on the floors,' he thought, 'when there is nobody here by myself! Who acts: man, nobody. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 38, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/38/111/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 38, sentence 111

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'How foolish to bid me to put sand on the floors,' he thought, 'when there is nobody here by myself!

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**Who acts:** man, nobody · **What happens:** bid, put, think, be · **To what, where:** me, sand, floors · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 38. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, nobody), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg3027:38:111
# text = 'How foolish to bid me to put sand on the floors,' he thought, 'when there is nobody here by myself!
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
3	foolish	foolish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	ccomp	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	bid	bid	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
9	sand	sand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	floors	floor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
18	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	21	advmod	_	_
20	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	21	expl	_	_
21	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	ccomp	_	_
22	nobody	nobody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	21	nsubj	_	_
23	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	21	advmod	_	_
24	by	by	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	myself	myself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bid** | to-infinitive | man *not said here* | me |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **put** | to-infinitive | man *not said here* | sand |  | the floors |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V PP.destination NP»: agent=Agent sand=Theme on floor=Destination |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 4 | **be** | present | nobody |  |  | here; there |  | by myself | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme by myself=Location |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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